High Court grants anticipatory bail to EIILM officials

GANGTOK, 10 Oct: The High Court of Sikkim has granted anticipatory bail to the accused / petitioners in the EIILM [Eastern Institute Of Integrated Learning & Management] University police case; this follows the rejection of their anticipatory bail application filed by a couple of the accused at the court of the Sessions Judge, South and West at Namchi.
While the additional public prosecutor, Karma Thinlay, submitted, on instruction of SP South, Manoj Tiwari, who was present, that the police had no intention to take the petitioners into custody immediately, the single bench comprising Justice SP Wangdi observed that of relevance was the registration of non bailable offences against the persons “…giving rise to a reasonable apprehension of being arrested”.
However the court also laid out some conditions for the anticipatory bail. The police had been resisting the anticipatory bail as their summons to the universities authorities for questioning, including to the Chancellor, pro vice chancellor, vice chancellor etc, had not been complied with. Counsel for the petitioners, KT Bhutia submitted that while the petitioners were willing to cooperate with the investigation it was the very apprehension of arrest that had kept the accused away from appearing from questioning. It may be added here that several of those issued summons are in New Delhi.
The court noted that of concern was the liberty of the petitioners and further, they had approached the court within the rights prescribed by law.
Among the conditions laid out by the High Court include that the accused, if arrested, will be discharged on bail on their personal and security bond of Rs. 1 lakh each; they are also to render all cooperation with the investigating officer and are to report to the I/O as and when called during reasonable hours. The court also directed that those who are in Delhi are to report to the I/O to ensure that the investigation proceeds expeditiously.
Further they cannot leave station without permission of the investigating officer. And as the university also has offshore campuses it was directed by the High Court that the petitioners hand over their passports to the I/O during the period of investigation; these shall be released only with the leave of the Court. Finally the court directed that the petitioners are not to tamper with evidence.
In fact the additional public prosecutor had objected to the bail application on apprehension that the petitioners would tamper with evidence; it was submitted that the petitioners have been tampering with evidence and causing obstruction to the investigation apart from failing to appear before the I/O.
A letter was also placed before the court in support of this wherein, one of the management members of the university, on being summoned by the I/O had requested exemption “…due to my prescheduled work…” on that particular date. The Single Bench of the high court observed that it was difficult to accept the contention that the letter would amount to tampering with evidence.
The court further noted that nothing had stopped the police from calling him again and in the event the police have reasonable proof that the person is withholding information there were sufficient powers vested with them under the law to compel disclosure.
The Jorethang police had on 1 September charged the management of EIILM university, Jorethang on various counts including criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy. The university premises had been raided and the police had charged the university of operating unauthorized campuses including offshore campuses, doling out false degrees and certificates and claiming to give degrees for courses for which they had not the required infrastructure.
It has also come to light that cases with similar allegations have been filed against EIILM authorities in other parts of the country as well particularly in Bhatinda and Mumbai. There are around 336 centres of the university all over the country.
Meanwhile, the Namchi police has issued notice under 160 CrPc to five officials of the University to be present for their statement on Monday, 15 October, 2012. Further, the police have also issued notice to all these persons [who received anticipatory bail today] to submit their passports by 5pm on October 13, 2012.